In an amazing turn of events, Biden took a break from blaming Trump for all of his self-induced problems and actually excepted blame for the horrific decision to withdrawal from Afghanistan.
It must have been a moment of clarity for Biden. I don’t know if they have him on a new medication but it was pretty surprising. The whole thing went down after Biden called on Peter Doocy from Fox News’ at a press briefing following the attack on the Kabul airport:
Doocy: Mr. President, there had not been a U.S. service member killed in combat in Afghanistan since February of 2020. You set a deadline. You pulled troops out. You sent troops back in. And now 12 Marines are dead. You said the buck stops with you. Do you bear any responsibility for the way that things have unfolded in the last two weeks?
THE PRESIDENT: I bear responsibility for, fundamentally, all that’s happened of late.
But here’s the deal: You know — I wish you’d one day say these things — you know as well as I do that the former President made a deal with the Taliban that he would get all American forces out of Afghanistan by May 1.
In return, the commitment was made — and that was a year before — in return, he was given a commitment that the Taliban would continue to attack others, but would not attack any American forces.
Remember that? I’m being serious.
Doocy: Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: No, I — I’m asking you a question. Be a — because before I —
Doocy: Donald Trump is not the President right now.
THE PRESIDENT: No, no — now wait a minute. I’m asking you a question. Is that — is that accurate, to the best of your knowledge?
Doocy: I know what you’re talking about. But, Mr. President, respectfully —
THE PRESIDENT: What?
Doocy — since — I don’t think that the issue that — do you think that people have an issue with pulling out of Afghanistan or just the way that things have happened?
THE PRESIDENT: I think they have an issue that people are likely to get hurt — some, as we’ve seen, have gotten killed — and that it is messy.
The reason why — whether my friend will acknowledge it and was — reported it — the reason why there were no attacks on Americans, as you said, from the date until I came into office, was because the commitment was made by President Trump: “I will be out by May 1st. In the meantime, you agree not to attack any Americans.” That was the deal. That’s why no American was attacked.
Doocy: And you said that you still — a few days ago, you said you squarely stand by your decision to pull out.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I do. Because look at it this way, folks — and I’m going to — I have another meeting, for real. But imagine where we’d be if I had indicated, on May the 1st, I was not going to renegotiate an evacuation date; we were going to stay there.
I’d have only one alternative: Pour thousands of more troops back into Afghanistan to fight a war that we had already won, relative — is why the reason we went in the first place.
I have never been of the view that we should be sacrificing American lives to try to establish a democratic government in Afghanistan — a country that has never once in its entire history been a united country, and is made up — and I don’t mean this in a derogatory — made up of different tribes who have never, ever, ever gotten along with one another.
And so, as I said before — and this is the last comment I’ll make, but we’ll have more chance to talk about this, unfortunately, beyond, because we’re not out yet — if Osama bin Laden, as well as al Qaeda, had chosen to launch an attack — when they left Saudi Arabia — out of Yemen, would we have ever gone to Afghanistan? Even though the Taliban completely controlled Afghanistan at the time, would we have ever gone?
I know it’s not fair to ask you questions. It’s rhetorical. But raise your hand if you think we should have gone and given up thousands of lives and tens of thousands of wounded.
Our interest in going was to prevent al Qaeda from reemerging — first to get bin Laden, wipe out al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and prevent that from happening again.
As I’ve said 100 times: Terrorism has metastasized around the world; we have greater threats coming out of other countries a heck of a lot closer to the United States.
We don’t have military encampments there; we don’t keep people there. We have over-the-horizon capability to keep them from going after us.”
Watch The Clip Below.
I’m not sure anyone expected Biden to take any responsibility. He has spent all of his time in office blaming his woes on the previous administration. I’m sure his handlers are furious.
